PROTECT YOUR ASSETS

I remember being in my early 20’s – before kids, marital responsibilities, home ownership, etc. All that I had to worry about was my career, what workout I was going to do that day and which NYC restaurant I was going to that night. I was responsible about taking care of my healthy essentials (eating right, skin care, exercise, etc), because my parents taught me great habits. For that, I’m truly blessed. From my Mom, I learned the importance of skin care. She always took such good care of her skin, and at almost 70 she looks phenomenal. She did not have a La Mer budget for expensive creams and facials, but she was consistent in her skincare regime, and to this day, I still love the smell of Oil of Olay because she wore it when she tucked me in at night. From an exercise perspective, I learned from my parents the importance of staying active. I would put on my purple striped leotard and do Jane Fonda workouts with my Mom after dinner, and I was always going on long bike rides with my Dad.

I’m sharing this because as we grow older, we need to be reminded (and to remind our own children) to PROTECT OUR ASSETS. Translation: treat your God given assets as you do the assets in your investment portfolio or the important things that you own. If you are born with the privilege of good health, that is the #1 item in your life portfolio. If you owned a hot stock, would you sabotage that? So don’t be an ass and sabotage your healthy assets. And guess what? If you have a poor diet, your mind could be affected too, so add “your mind” to that list of assets in your portfolio. I just finished reading “Clean Gut” by @alejandrojunger and learned so much more about the importance of good gut health, which was one of the inspirations for this post.

Protecting your assets doesn’t require a fancy investment manager who is going to take a percentage of your proceeds. The proceeds go 100% back to you. And protecting your assets is actually pretty simple. Ready?

1. Exercise. Find the way you love to workout and do it a minimum of 5 times/week between 45 minutes to an hour at a time. Can’t make it to a gym? Check out DailyBurn.com (#dailyburn) for some insanely good interval training workouts by the great Bob Harper and his team.

2. Take care of your skin. I don’t care if you are a man or a woman, make morning and nighttime skin care a priority and wear your sunscreen with a high SPF EVERYDAY. Not just when you’re on vacation or during the summer. Also, drink loads of water and herbal tea.

3. Clean up your diet. Borrowing from the great Michael Pollan, “if it came from a plant, eat it, if it was made in a plant, don’t”. Ridding your diet of processed foods and excess sugars will help you whittle your waistline, avoid heart disease and make your skin clear up and glow.

4. Stop making excuses. “I’m an emotional eater”, “I can’t wake up early and exercise”, “I’m too tired to wash my face at night.” Guess what these excuses become? Your legacy. You can write your own story with the picture perfect you on the cover. Just make sure that the copy focuses on the positive things that will create a happy ending. “I stopped eating my feelings by grabbing for carrots instead of candy bars, and lost 20 lbs. in one year.” Now THAT is a story that we all want to read.